The Grand Ballast (13 page)

Bode curled his hands into
fists.

“
The Boooyyyy of the Water!
In his Last…Act…on…Earth!”

He picked through the
crowd’s murmur and clung to the interesting bits of
conversation.

“—
to kill him,” someone
behind them murmured.

“
I’ve never seen anyone die
before.”

“—
found my
husband—”

“
Are we no better than the
Romans?”

“
Ah.” Kilroy leaned
forward. “Maybe now things will get interesting.”

Bode sat
straighter.

Onto the white diving
platform walked the Boy of the Water. He was magnificent—tall and
broad shouldered, with a defined waist and narrow hips. His skin
was darker than Bode’s, and his hair had been bleached almost white
and had a green tint to it, like a patina on copper. His hair
looked strange and delicate in contrast with his dark eyes and
bold, solid features. He had pieces of fishing line strung through
his earlobes, and at the end of each was a small hook and a speared
fish, still alive and flopping. Seaweed was strewn over the Boy’s
body, and an orange starfish clung to the side of his head. He was
barnacled in oddities. A gold cuff wrapped around one ankle, a huge
eyehook protruding from it.

He stood with his hands
clasped behind his back, facing forward but seeming to see nothing.
Bode slowly realized that some of the marks on his body weren’t
paint or seaweed, but thick, ropy scars, places where the flesh
looked like it had been raked.

The Boy of the Water wasn’t
a boy. He was a man, and Bode wondered how he could stand there so
serenely, waiting for death. Even at his most miserable, even in
the months after Driscoll, Bode hadn’t been able to bring himself
to die.

One video screen showed the
Boy as he stood on the platform. Another showed the bottom of the
pool. A rusted iron ring stuck out from the pool’s floor, a thick
black chain coiled around the ring like a serpent. Bode watched the
fish in the Boy’s ears die, their tails brushing the Boy’s
shoulders as the breeze moved them.

Another man stepped onto
the platform. He wore a blue cloak with white and silver streaks in
it. Bode figured he was supposed to look like water, but he only
looked silly. The man walked up behind the Boy of the Water. The
announcer said something Bode didn’t catch. The man held a black
whip with a thick braided handle and a snakelike lash, and he
gestured at the water with it. The Boy stepped forward.

Bode glanced at Kilroy but
couldn’t read anything in his expression.

The Boy hooked his toes
over the edge of platform. He looked down into the pool then
stepped back slightly. The man with the whip walked closer, a trace
of surprise and anger in his expression that made Bode wonder
whether this part wasn’t in the script. He cracked the whip, and
the Boy arched his back and dove into the water. He surfaced a
moment later, and as the waves rolled away, the Boy was left with
his arms spread along the surface, his legs moving gracefully
below, keeping him afloat.

The man dove in too and
circled the Boy. Bode alternated watching the screen and watching
the action below him. The man was a strong swimmer. His cloak came
off and floated toward the edge of the pool. The man swam closer to
the Boy and began to unwind seaweed from around the Boy’s waist,
until the boy’s groin was exposed. His cock hung limp, surrounded
by dark hair. The man stopped swimming and treaded in front of the
Boy.

The sun burst out from
behind the clouds, making the water sparkle, webbing the bottom of
the pool in white and gold. The man began to suck the Boy’s cock,
teasing him to hardness. A clock on the video screen showed that
the man had been underwater for nearly two minutes. The Boy’s hair
was plastered to his head, his eyes closed, his lips parted. He
treaded only slightly faster as the man worked.

The man surfaced to grab a
breath. The crowd applauded. The man dove under again. Sucked the
Boy until the Boy’s neck muscles strained and he slapped the water
with one hand. Bode couldn’t stop watching his face. He was so
beautiful, so calm and strong. Bode wanted to be the one sucking
his cock. Wanted to suck someone quiet and beautiful, someone who
wouldn’t make the act about pain or humiliation.

It occurred to Bode in a
flash of grief and fear that this was the Boy’s last act on earth.
That he was going to die, and all Bode could do was wait to see
when and how.

Suddenly the man dove
deeper—down, down, his arms extended in front of him. He seized the
chain at the bottom of the pool. Struggled to unwind it, to haul it
up. Several times, Bode thought the man would lose the battle and
be pulled to the bottom again, caught in that web of white-gold
light. But the man swam up to where the Boy’s legs kicked gently
back and forth. He grabbed the Boy’s ankle and yanked him under the
water. Bode saw the Boy snatch one final breath before his head
disappeared.

Bode watched the screen
now. The man held the chain in one hand and the Boy’s ankle in the
other, hooked the chain to the steel loop on the Boy’s ankle cuff.
A jet of bubbles went up from the man’s nose, temporarily obscuring
the action. The Boy remained calm and still as the weight of the
chain pulled him down. He seemed frozen, his bleached hair drifting
around his head, his fingers splayed. The man shot toward the
surface to take another breath, then dove back down and went to
work on the Boy’s cock, bubbles still streaming from his
nose.

Bode watched, transfixed.
The crowd had gone quiet, and it was eerie to look around and see
tiers and tiers of silent spectators. Bode shifted forward in his
seat. Tried to make his voice work. The screen showed a close up of
the man’s face pressed to the Boy’s groin. The Boy started to move.
Slowly at first, twisting slowly, gracefully. Bode watched his face
on the screen, wishing he could feel that peace, that stillness. He
felt himself slipping deeper into the Haze.

There we go.

No. No. He had to stay
focused. It was death he was looking at—not peace.

The Boy’s eyes flew open
suddenly. Terror in them. Bubbles flew up, obscuring his face. He
began to thrash.

“
No.” Bode got the word out
finally. He grabbed Kilroy’s sleeve. “No. They can’t—we have to
stop it.”

Kilroy waved at him in
irritation. “Hush. Pay attention.”

Bode’s voice rose in panic.
“Kilroy, please. Make them stop.”

Kilroy whirled toward him.
“Shut up,” he growled. Then he paused. Tilted his head as he
studied Bode. Bode turned away, shaking, unable to watch the screen
or look at Kilroy.

“
He doesn’t want to die,”
Bode mumbled. “He doesn’t want to; he’s—”

“
Bode,
that’s
enough
. Take a breath and enjoy this.”

Bode sat trembling with
rage and terror until he couldn’t anymore. He lunged out of his
seat and raced down the aisle steps. He saw the man in the water
surface for another breath. Saw, on the screen, the Boy of the
Water stop moving.

Bode reached the pool and
began climbing the ladder. People shouted at him. Security guards
were running toward the pool. A buzz spread through the crowd. He
reached the top and leaped into the water, then swam down toward
the bottom.

Time seemed to slow. He
waited for his eyes to adjust to the sting of the chlorine. And
then he felt wonderful. The noise had all faded to a dull mumble.
He smiled and let out a small string of bubbles.

The Boy was straight ahead,
the light forming a net around him. His body was limp, his hair
still drifting. The starfish and seaweed had fallen from his body,
leaving him completely naked. He looked like someone from a fairy
tale who’d been asleep for a hundred years. The other man circled
him like a shark.

Bode swam up to the Boy.
Gripped his ankle and tried to unhook the chain. He was already
nearly out of breath already. He saw the man swimming toward him,
and he kicked and thrashed, and his foot finally connected with the
man’s body. The man rocketed to the surface, leaving Bode and the
Boy of the Water alone.

Suddenly, Bode’s thoughts
blurred. He couldn’t remember exactly what he was doing down
here.

Stay
awake
, a voice warned him.
Focus.

There was no one to tell
him what to do. He waited for Kilroy’s voice, Mr. Lein’s. For the
prick of the ring stick’s thorns. His chest tightened, his vision
starting to go black around the edges.

Focus
.

His thoughts reshuffled.
His hand was on the chain. He was at the Hydra Arena. He’d jumped
into the pool to save the Boy of the Water.

Come on
, Bode urged himself, working the hook.
If you do one fucking thing right in your life, let it be
this.

At last, he got the chain
unhooked. Wrapped one arm around the Boy’s motionless body and
started kicking for the surface.

Come on.

His strength was fading. He
released the last of the breath he was holding and kicked
harder.

Don’t let go.

He was going down. The
Boy’s weight was pulling him back toward the bottom. Bode gave
three more hard kicks.

He surfaced, sputtering and
coughing. Pulled the Boy up beside him. The Boy slumped, his head
falling on Bode’s shoulder, making it almost impossible to swim for
the edge. A line of people were waiting at the ladder. They started
to pull Bode out, but Bode resisted.

“
Him…” he said between
gasps. “Get him…out.”

Someone took the Boy of the
Water’s arms and hauled him out of the pool. Someone else caught
Bode. Bode closed his eyes as his rescuer struggled to carry him
down the ladder. Bode lay on the ground beside the pool’s glass
wall, panting. People were talking around him, but he couldn’t hear
what they were saying over the roar of the crowd.

He wasn’t sure how long he
lay there. People were asking him questions, but he refused to
answer. Every now and then he tried to get up, tried to ask someone
what had happened to the Boy. But each time, someone pushed him
back down.

At long last, familiar
hands helped him to his feet. He tried to fight, but Kilroy jerked
him away from the pool, onto the concrete in front of the
bleachers. “Wait!” Bode hauled back on Kilroy’s arm. “He… I have
to…”

“
I’ve bought his contract,”
Kilroy muttered, as the chaos in the stands continued.

“
You…?”

Kilroy stopped walking.
Someone above them yelled, “Good
show
!”

“
I bought his contract!”
Kilroy shouted at Bode. “He’s ours now.” Kilroy dealt him a vicious
backhand. Bode’s head snapped sideways; his knees buckled, but
Kilroy held him up. Slowly he looked at Kilroy again, his cheek
throbbing.

“
You’ve made a fool out of
me,” Kilroy said. “An absolute fool.”

Kilroy continued to pull
him toward the exit. Bode stumbled alongside him, head ringing. But
for the first time in a while, he felt hopeful.

MAKE THEM SEE

Then.

In the spare room of the apartment, Bode
rehearsed in a violent stupor until his ankles trembled and the
balls of his feet were raw and a crack appeared in the nail of one
toe, edged in blood. Until his body felt bruised on the inside and
his mind was nothing but flashes of panic and self-loathing. No
matter how hard he danced, he felt his own effort. He wasn’t giving
anything from his soul, he was just…struggling.

He slapped his own cheek once, lightly. Then
more fiercely. The sting traveled across his skin.

Focus.

This new show—what if it was a complete
disaster?

He wanted to go to the Little Comet to
rehearse, to see if working in the studio changed things. But a
furious voice in his head made him stay put. Told him he wasn’t
leaving until he got this right.

Finally, in the evening, something shifted.
Exhaustion and hunger took him someplace where the floors weren’t
solid and silence poured like light through the windows. The music
seemed to crawl on him, and he tried to shiver it off, but then he
stopped and let it in. It sank into his skin then sailed on his
blood and looped over his brain, forming a net of notes and
vibrations. He closed his eyes.

Fifteen minutes later, he crept into the
living room, where Kilroy was reading on the sofa. Kilroy didn’t
look up, so Bode took a moment to study him. He was wearing
glasses, which made him seem tamer somehow—older. His chin was
tipped down and his perfectly straight hair curled in to brush his
jawline. He wore a black sweater with fangs of gray across the
chest. Dark pants, and red wingtip shoes.

The chandelier directly above him cast a dim
gold light that made his hair shine and gave a slick, polished
gleam to the floorboards. On the far wall were empty shelves they
still hadn’t filled with knickknacks or books.

“
Can I show you what I’ve
been working on?” Bode put almost no strength behind the words, and
yet they still seemed too loud.